Customer Reviews

The Midnight Club

5 star:		(74)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is one of my all-time favorite books! Normally I'm not a fan of Christopher Pike but this particular book is incredibly insightful and full of heartbreaking and heartwarming stories.

Ilonka is a patient at a hospice for teens and 20-somethings, Rotterham Home, she has made friends with other patients Kevin, Sandra, Anya and Spence. Every night at exactly midnight the five of them gather in the library to tell stories. Basically, telling stories is the only fun they can have, in a hospice, everyone is waiting to die. Each one of the five friends has a different form of fatal cancer. Then, they discover that one of the members of their club is leaving the hospice to go back to normal life!

At the same time, Ilonka begins to have dreams of past lives, she remembers vividly life in Ancient Egypt, Asia and medieval Europe. The strange thing is that all the lives are connected to Kevin, a member of club Ilonka felt that she always knew from the first time she met him. Kevin's continuing story revolves around an angel and the misguided woman he loves, a story which is strangely parallel to the lives that Ilonka remembers.

Then, one of the members of the midnight club dies, but not before they tell Ilonka a true story which begins a mystery and the ultimate resolution to the sad stories that plague Ilonka's past.

Absolutely touching and revealing story. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone under the age of 14 though, this books should really not be in a children's catagory. I recommend it to anyone 14 to 114! This is just such a fabulous, fantastic story! Christopher Pike really hit on a timeless story with this book!

As a teen, I read countless books by Christopher Pike. Most of them have since been packed away in boxes or given to younger friends and relatives to enjoy. The Midnight Club, however, remains on my bookshelf (its cover is nearly torn off from so much use). Pike expands his horizons in this book, departing from his usual themes of horror and death. Though the book is all about kids who are dying, the prevalant theme is life. Pike gives us a great truth in a story told with deceptive simplicity: it is not the number of years we live that makes our lives meaningful, but instead the way we spend those years and the other lives we touch. Don't be dissuaded from picking up this book because of the YA classification--a must-read for all ages.

Here it is. Christopher Pike's masterpiece. Yes, he's a teen horror writer. No, his books won't outlast Austen's or Dickens.' So what? Like Stephen King, he's a damn good writer, one of the best of our era, and in Midnight Club he's at his peak. Read this one for its sheer inventiveness, read The Last Vampire for action, and read Whisper of Death for the ultimate chill. Read all of them for expertly crafted setting and mood, tight plotting, and characters that are both unpretentiously created and totally compelling. While most of his characters are "normal," their traits are heightened enough from those of ordinary people to make them truly engaging.

This book has everything from comedy to sci-fi to drama to romance, and it also marks the point when Pike's "Eastern mysticism" kick started to go overboard. But here, it's just enough.

Like Roald Dahl, Pike succeeds because he doesn't write "down" to his audience. It's a travesty that he's lumped in with R.L. Stine, which is like lumping in Stephen King with Dean Koontz. One's a great original; the other's just very proficient in the genre, sending boxes down the assembly line. Read Pike and you'll feel a master at work.

This book isn't scary at all, its just mysterious and suspensefull. It seems more like a romance story because it's very sad. It was a very interesting story and shows how people go through life and make the decision to be scared of death or not. I would rate this story 5 out of 5 because Christopher Pike makes you feel like you're really at the hospice.

I love ALL Christopher Pike's book, and this one has to be one of my favourites.

Christopher Pike has a tendency to write an ending that leaves the reader in shock, devestated even of what happened to the main character, yet at the same time you cannot truly feel sad because usually, what happened to that character, was in reality the best that COULD happen to that character...

this book was different.. probably his only one like this... where in the end.. it was just tragic. There's no bright side to it, it was plainly, tragic. When I was finished I was slightly in shock that he ended it that way, and I was afraid to look at the book even for the next three weeks. This is how well written it was.

I would recommend it to everyone out there.

I must agree with the review posted by the reader from Iowa City, this is definently a book for all ages. It touches many senses, mostly love. Although it may sound depressing or morbid to read about teens in a hospice waiting to die, you find as you read, it is neither. You find yourself loving each character more and more with every turn of the page, and knowing they will live eternally in your mind and heart after the book is over. Their strength and bravery is touching and commendable, and after reading this novel, you will see what is really important in life is love and making the most of each day. The dramatic portrayal of each character is amazing. The stories told by the midnight club are also very memorable, with that notable Pike twist, and horror. Over all, this book is wonderful, and touching, it will leave you with a sense of warmth, and love, and a life lesson.

Huge fan of Christopher Pike novels since I was about 11 years old. My fave from him is 'Remember Me'. I'm 26 now and recently decided to read this again because I don't think I ever finished it when I was younger. I'm glad I did. It's about a group of teens that are terminally ill and form a club in which they swap stories. This book includes a lot of "mini-stories" which are told by the characters themselves. Don't worry, they're not boring!! The mini-stories are actually very interesting, funny, and profound. This book has nothing SCARY about it what-so-ever. If you like the ideas of past lives, the after-life, God/Gods, spirituality, and SOULMATES*, you will like this book and maybe leak out a tear here and there. In general, I'd say it's a "deep" book. I would highly recommend this to any young adult, and maybe EVEN an adult because of the way Pike's imagination centers around questions anyone at any age wonders about - love, life and death. Not much sexual content at ALL so it'd be ok for a teen. Disregard one of the reviews below about it being really sexual. I have no idea WHAT they are talking about. Enjoy.

i absolutely love this book. I have read other books of christopher pike and i msut say, this is my top favorites if not the top. This book touched me in ways that i didn't know. I've always interested in reading books where the characters have some kind of physicial hinder (like dying..), maybe that's why, but that's not all. Just read this book!

This is the best book I've read in a long time. This book makes you cry and think about your life, and be happy being healthy. This is Christopher Pikes best. He put in so much soul that I could feel myself there. Not a lot of books can make you cry and feel grateful at the same time. You should get this book if you want to feel like you are a character of the book, but you're not named as a character in the character's lives.

Honestly, this book has not much to do with the caption that graces it's back. While it does follow the lives of young adults dying at a hospice, the first dying member doesn't bring the remaining grief. While the caption may mislead, the book is still great. You will find yourself engrossed in the characters, they are wonderful. While the book isn't much horror, its still great, I suggest it to anyone, not just Young Adults.